


I Love You (So Bite Me)

by melwil



Category: West Wing
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-10
Updated: 2011-04-10
Packaged: 2017-10-17 20:49:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/181047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melwil/pseuds/melwil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>CJ and Toby wander through their lives and around each other</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Love You (So Bite Me)

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted in 2003

He was standing in her doorway, his suit still starched, with a bottle of expensive red wine clasped in his hand. "I thought, you know, you might like a drink."

Her hair was freshly washed, hanging straight and damp and a little wavy around her face. She wore a faded, over stretched tank top and he thought she looked fantastic. "We drink too much," she said.

He stared, as if she'd just announced the landing of aliens on Dupont Circle. "We drink enough."

She laughed. There was more laughter later hen she opened a bottle of bourbon and he blew smoke rings out an opened window.

"Everyone knows about us." She giggled a little and hair fell across her eyes. "Sam and Josh and Donna and Carol. They all know, you know."

"Know what?" He held up his glass. He loved the way the alcohol shone under the light.

"They know about us. About our thing."

"It's not a thing, CJ. It's just, you know . . ."

"Sex."

"Yes."

"Well they know about our sex."

And he knew they knew. But he kissed her anyway; on the inside of her arm, on the corner where her neck met her shoulders; because he knew they would move closer and the kissing would lead to sex.

They couldn't stop just because people knew.

 

*

 

He had very nice wine glasses. She held one, the stem balanced between the tips of her fingers as Toby filled it with wine. Red wine with all its cliched connotations.

Sometimes you need a good cliché.

And they were very nice wine glasses.

"Will you forgive me?" He was sitting in a battered leather armchair. Once he said it was the only piece of furniture Andi was happy to let go. It was easy to understand why.

"I was never angry with you," she sat on his faded carpet, leaning against a stiff, unused sofa, "not really."

He raised his eyebrows. "Lies. Nothing but lies, Claudia."

"Don't call me Claudia." She put the glass to her mouth, letting the wine roll over her tongue.

"I'm sorry."

"Screw me Toby." She gulped at her wine, thinking it would just be easier to shatter the glass. "Just screw me."

"Why?"

"Because it makes me feel better," she struggled to get to her feet. "Because I'm still pissed with you."

"You lied," but he let her pull him up, let her unbutton his shirt.

"Screw me Toby."

He slid his hands under her blouse, ran them over her smooth skin, dipped a finger under her waistband, pulled her closer. "Only if you insist."

"Screw you."

 

*

 

"I saw Andi today. Leo set an appointment with Andi."

"I know." She watched as he pulled on a T-shirt. He looked tired. Tired and faded and sad. "Leo told me about it."

"She gave me pie." Toby sat on the edge of her bed, let his eyes wander the length of her naked body, returned his eyes to hers.

He had come to her door with a gaudy bunch of supermarket flowers. She shoved them in a dusty vase and took him to bed.

They moved slowly and deliberately and, but for the grace of their own good sense, there would have been tears involved.

"Sometimes I think I could love you, Toby."

"Yeah?"

"But then, you know, I think better of it."

"Yeah."

 

*

 

Josh wasn't moving. There were tubes and machines and terrible beeping noises and Josh wasn't moving.

Sam stood on one side of her; hands shoved in his pockets, his expression grim. On her other side Toby stood a little too close, the tips of his fingers resting on her arm.

"Go home." Leo was waiting outside the room. CJ wondered when he last slept.

"Leo . . ."

"You're tired. You're emotional. And you're liable to make mistakes. You need sleep and you need to get away from the hospital."

Sam hugged her and walked away. She wanted to thank him, to make him smile. But he left too quick.

They didn't say anything in the taxi to his place. Words were vacant, superficial, vapid. Inappropriate when you considered the circumstances.

He kissed her as they stumbled up the stairs. She pulled at his shirt, pulled it from his pants, pushed it from his shoulders. He left kisses across her bare back and she curled up next to him, rolled into a tight ball to sleep.

"I don't want to go back to work," she whispered, her lips moving against his chest.

He held her head close to him and felt her tears against his skin.

 

*

 

"I think we're addicted to each other."

He couldn't forget the way her hair felt brushing against his chest.

She couldn't forget the goose pimples his hand gave her when they traced patterns on her stomach.

"You can't be addicted to a person."

"Are you sure?"

 

*

 

"Sometimes I think I love you, Toby."

"Can't you wait until we get back to my place?"

"I may not love you then."

"Lies, CJ, lies."

"Bite me."


End file.
